Aquarium health

I love listening to people talk about what they do. If I could, I would spend all my time listening and asking questions.

My mental illness is one that is a bit green and gluggy. My heart clogs up with algae. Listening to other people is like putting a hose down a coronary artery and blasting the slime out. Listening leaves no space for introspection. 

My algal blooms aren't the kind of bouquet you want to give someone you love, they would be a weed. A man at an art show once said that weeds are just plants in the wrong places, that all weeds are native to some place. My mental illness is native to me, it evolved over the duration of my life as the plant which was best able to thrive under the environmental context of my childhood. Happiness was definitely going to wilt, the conditions weren't appropriate for happiness. 

That's why I have felt comfortable living for so long with a giant kelp infestation inside me. This is also the reason why other people find it so foreign, like an extraterrestrial life form. Of course it would be nice not to have this seaweed problem, to not come home to a thin velvety veneer of slime coating my vision or giant black scratchy kelp forests clogging my emotional life, but the truth remains that in actuality it isn't a problem, there is no blame and there is no cure. It's just the predomination of one species. I just need a more diverse ecosystem in my chest.

I find on the whole that there are hugely gratifying and worthwhile engagements with people that make me fall in love with listening and talking and lustily urge me to chase after communion. As my appetite for stories and people grows, my kelp infestation doesn't lessen, but I learn slowly how to introduce new species, ones which filter the environment and provide nutrients, maybe some little fish, a sea snail to clean the walls, a bêche de mere just for laughs.